What causes the gurgling sound from your cat's belly?
It is very irritating when a gurgling sound can be heard in your cat’s belly. How does that gurgling sound actually arise? Your cat’s guts naturally contain intestinal contents. This consists of food that has been ground by the stomach in combination with gastric and intestinal juices. These juices act on that ground food so that nutrients are released and can be absorbed by the intestinal wall. After that it is used as building material or fuel for the body. However, if something goes wrong with digestion, too much gas can be made in the intestines. It is mainly in the large intestine where the intestinal bacteria live that this takes place. This gas will be moved back and forth by the intestinal movements together with the moist intestinal contents. This creates that gurgling sound in your cat’s belly.
Could this gurgling sound in your cat's belly be dangerous?
The gurgling sound in your cat’s belly that you hear is harmless in itself. So if this happens once, you know that your cat’s intestines are a bit upset and the digestion has not gone completely well. But in most cases, your cat will have resolved this on its own after a day or two. Normally is hardly is painfull.
But if your cat has this gurgling sound very often or even all the time, then there is something wrong. The digestion of the food does not proceed as well as it should in your cat. If the intestines are enlarged due to gas formation the belly also can feel harder than normal.
What can you do about the gurgling sound in your cat's belly?
Adjusting his food
It is important that you first start by providing easily digestible food that has a high quality. Most brands of food do have a gastrointestinal diet and they are easily digestible and therefore suitable. Personally, we usually recommend Royal Canin sensitive stomach. This food is therefore easily digestible and contains good quality building materials without useless additives that make the numbers on the packaging look good. In most cases, it already ensures that the gurgling sound in your cat’s belly is a thing of the past.
SUPPORTING INTESTINAL FLORA
The intestinal bacteria, or intestinal flora, can sometimes also be out of balance. The bad bacteria have then taken over at the expense of the good bacteria. These bad bacteria are better able to make a lot of gas. To get less gurgling belly sounds in your cat, you need less gas production and therefore more good bacteria and less bad bacteria. You improve the intestinal flora with the help of a good diet as explained above, but also with probiotics. The probiotics contain the good bacteria that you want to have and keep in the intestines. By offering them in combination with the food, you have a bigger chance that they attach themselves to the intestinal wall and then survive there and multiply. This drives out the bad bacteria. A good probiotic product is Fortiflora. As a result, the gurgling sound in your cat’s belly should stop.
REMOVE INTESTINAL PARASITES
It is possible that the intestinal wall is damaged because parasites live in the intestines. These might be worms, but also single-cell intestinal parasites such as Giardia. Due to the damage to the intestinal wall, digestion does not proceed properly and the intestinal bacteria gain access to substances from which they form gases. And this in turn creates the gurgling sounds in your cat’s belly. It is therefore wise to give your cat a treatment with Fenbendazole. The dosage is 50mg/kg catweight once a day for 5 days. Panacur 250 is the best you can use to remove parasites, but is not available on Amazon.com right now. Instead you can use the oral doser for rabbits. This works against normal intestinal worms as well as against various single-celled parasites like Giardia and others. And with that against that gurgling sound in your cat’s belly.
How long do you have to treat your cat?
It is important to continue to feed your cat an easily digestible food for the rest of its life. You can also give the probiotics for the rest of his life, but it is usually sufficient to give it for a month. After that, the intestinal flora has been adjusted to a healthy intestinal flora and your cat should no longer have gurgling belly.
The gurgling sound in your cat's belly wasn't resolved
Did the above treatments not help your cat get rid of the gurgling sounds in his belly? Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen very often. In this case, your cat probably has a medical problem in its gut. That may caused him to develop inflammations of the guts. It is wise to do a food allergy test on your cat. For this you give the following food for 8 weeks. In addition, he should not get any other form of food or treats. Only give him the special food.
You will probably not notice a difference during the first 4 weeks. But after 4 weeks you should notice that the sounds in your cat’s intestines are getting less. If so, your cat is allergic to a nutrient in its old food. This substance is not in the food below. The inflammations in the guts that were caused by the allergic reaction ensure that the digestion of his food does not go well. Wrong substances then arrive at the level of the intestinal flora, which then turn it into gas. Resulting in a gurgling sound in your cat’s belly.
Is the problem still not solved after this? Then it is wise to contact your vet. Further investigation will probably be done in the form of a bowel ultrasound or stool examination. Sometimes it also can be decided to look inside the intestines with a camera to look for the problem.
Good luck!
Hopefully the last part of the text is not necessary in your cat. He probably has enough with the change of diet and probiotics. We wish you and your cat good luck in solving his gurgling sounds in his belly.